This invention relates to a bill device used in a vending machine, an exchanger or the like device and, more particularly, to improvements in construction of such bill device and to a control for returning a part of once received and temporarily retained bills and accepting the rest of bills into a bill accumulating device.
Known in the art are various constructions of a bill device having functions of discriminating a true bill from a counterfeit one among bills inserted from a bill insertion slit, temporarily retaining a true bill which has been received upon discrimination, and returning the retained bill or accepting it into a bill accumulating section as required. For example, there is a known bill device which comprises a bill discrimination section, a stacker section for accumulating a large number of bills in unreturnable state and an escrow section for retaining a large number of bills in a returnable state in which these bills are wound on a drum (Japanese patent application No. 131462/1981 filed on Aug. 24, 1981 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 409,017 filed on Aug. 17, 1982 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,513,80). While this type of bill device is advantageous when it is required to temporarily retain a large number of bills, it has the disadvantage that the device as a whole tends to become large because it requires extra space for provision of the escrow section.
There is also known a bill device which consists only of a bill discrimination section and a stacker section and in which bills are temporarily retained somewhere in a bill conveying passage leading from the bill discrimination section to the stacker section. This device however has been found inadequate because the bill conveying passage is of a straight line construction and can scarcely retain more than one bill.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a bill device of a nevel construction which is of a compact construction and yet capable of temporarily retaining as many bills as possible.
In a case where such a control is realized that plural bills can be temporarily retained somewhere in a bill conveying passage leading from a bill discrimination section to a stacker section and a part of the retained bills are accepted into a bill accumulating device as a sales amount and returning the rest of bills as change, there arises a problem as to which of the bill returning operation and the bill accepting operation should be given priority. If the bill accepting operation is performed first, there occurs delay in returning of bills because the bill accumulating operation requires time with a result that purchasers are put to inconvenience.
It is, therefore, another object of the invention to provide a control device for a bill device which enables a control such that a part of plural bills retained in temporary retention means are accepted into a bill accumulating section and the rest of bills are returned and further that the bill returning operation is performed first and thereafter the bill accepting operation is performed for the convenience to the purchasers.